[Sigia-l] Re: audience analysis and demographics

[janna cybill hicks]

> I am trying to find the value in traditional market research (I mean
> dividing people up by income, lyfestyle (married, single, ...), age,
> location, ...) for IA's. Is there really no value at all in this research
> for us? I have limited experience using research like that for real life IA
> work, and have found it's value very limited, but surely other people can
> give different experiences?

When meeting with a new client and are setting out to understand the
business goals for the site/application, often it is an easy (I'm not
suggesting  *accurate*) way for the client to initially articulate who they
understand their target audience to be.

Now, is that target audience the actual audience in reality? Well, if you're
involved in the design and implementation of additional user research, it's
your job (and pleasure!) to show them otherwise.  Often the offline
demographic does not match the online demographic.

I've also found the demographics to be helpful in the recruiting of users
for usability testing.

janna